Balloonolo-3

Launch site: Pateira de Fermentelos, Águeda (Portugal)

Same team, great launch site. Balloon went up and we were able to track if for a long time.
The ballon circle around the Aveiro region, blow up at a very high altitude and fall directly into the Atlantic.

The last valid position I was able to receive was over Praia de Mira. Right after I guess the balloon exploded and went down int the ocean. I tought we had lost it but on the next day I got a call from a fisherman in Vagueira saying he had found it, caught in its fishnet.

Some of the recovered photos:

Falling down...

Balloonolo-7

Balloonolo-7

Launch date Sept 4, 2016
Location: Vila Marim, Vila Real - Portugal

Major improvements on this launch:

• Transmition will be on RTTY and LORA, both at 434MHz, using RFM98W
• There will be a temperature and pressure sensor inside the balloon, close to the neck, that will measure these across the entire flight
• Inisde the payload another temperature and pressure sensor, plus an humidity sensor will record these conditions during the flight.
• Batery voltage will be measured and recorded
• There will be a ballast valve that is set to release 100ml of alcoohol (water will freeze at those heights) at around 20.000 meters. I want to know how the balloon will behave with the release of ballast.
• There will be a helium valve set to release helium during 60 seconds, at 30.000mts. I want to know how the ballooon will behave with the controlled loss of lift
• Using a W25Q32BVS 32M-bit serial flash memory to log all the information of the flight.
• All controlled from a Arduino Pro Mini running at 3.3V, 8MHz
• LORA gateway in the chase care collecting the telemetry coming from the Payload and uploading it through a ESP8266 Wi-Fi modem to the HABHUB site.
• Chase car position will be uploaded as well
• Improved the SNR of the received signal, both on RTTY as well as LORA

Ballast and Helium valves:

Well, this was definitely not a sucess launch. I forgot my LORA GATEWAY at home so I had to drive 3h back and forth to pick it up. I should have called off the launch and re-scheduled for some other day. Another lesson...

Well, after that drive I was already tired and plus, we were running against the clock (we were going to send the balloon after 2pm, plus ascent, then falling... well, you know... we will eventually be looking for the balloon at night). I decided to go ahead with the launch and then, another mistake... I filled the balloon with not enough helium. The result was that the ascent rate was to slow. We were able to track for a couple of hours but we were seeing it moving east, towards Spain, but the altitude was increasing very very slowly.

Anyway, the balloon never reached an altitude higher than 6.000m and went slowly towards Spain. We tried to follow it but realized that it was worthless. At around 19:00 the balloon started to descent, also slowly, maybe because the latex was leting some helium out. It never blew up, so it kept on drifting east.

At almost 20:00 after loosing contact we decided to give up.

It should be somewhere in Spain, around the Zamora area.

Update Feb/2018.

After 1 year and half we never retrieved back this payload. I wonder where it is and if it was found or not.

Maybe one day I get the call.

Balloonolo-5

What a success!
We were able to send, track and recover this high altitude balloon. Again, we decided to join forces together with team Jebedias and shared the same balloon to carry two independent payloads.
Great day, late August, amongst friends and family.

New improvements:

- First time I was using LORA @ 433 MHz and RTTY @ 433 MHz. Impressive the performance of LORA
- Decided to build a LORA gateway, that comes with us on the car, receives the LORA messages and tracks the path of the car.

Some conclusions drawn from this launch:
The radio on the top payload totally jammed the GPS on the bottom payload. So, we were never able to retrieve a valid GPS sync from the bottom payload. The GPS on the bottom payload did work perfectly. Maybe because the two payloads were too close, I don't know. I guess I'm not going to try it.
During preparation we noticed that the second GPS wasn't working but we decided to attempt the launch anyway.

The Balloon was launched at 11:30 in the morning, reached the maximum altitude of  30.995m at 15:33 and then started his descent hiting an olive tree at 17:39.
The trajectory changed a few times but we were able to track it using LORA and RTTY (harder, coz we had to get out of the car and set the YAGI antenna) all the time.

This time I also had a GPS on my chase car and I uploaded to HABHUB the location of it.

The following image shows the trajectory of the balloon (yellow) and the trajectory of my chase car (red). As you can see, the ballon started to go east, but suddenly geared towards west. After a while we went back east.

This is where it ended, on top of an olive tree.

GSBC

Getting ready for the Global Space Balloon Challenge.
http://www.balloonchallenge.org

Joined forces with Team Jebedias to accomplish a a double payload HAB over Trás-os-Montes (Northeastern reagion of Portugal).

Expected date will be 19/April/2014, from Vila Real, Portugal.

Payload I - Jebedias02
Payload II - Balloonolo-6

For further information please reach me at esculca at gmail dot com

Panic Atack

After all these years the guy is still innovative and genuine. And sure he can shread.

Serene

Vela - Ria de Aveiro

The harmonies match the images.

Mercedes

There are things that are just perfect the way they are!

Chuck Norris is awesome!

Chuck Norris has counted to infinity. Twice.

from http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

The rabbit appears

That's no ordinary rabbit!!!!

From Monty Phyton's «Quest for the Holy Grrrrrrrail»

Running from stereotypes

Quite different and yet the same as everyone else. Running from stereotypes, thus becoming one of them.

A MUST

Beyond everything you'll ever listen to. Complex, intricate, exciting, thrilling...

Perfection does exist

I stand in awe when I get to the third last chord (starting from the end!) of Bach's Tocata and Fugue (BWV 565).

I think there's going to be a backlash against technology...

They've incorporated their culture and their values into the city and they've enriched the cityboth like, from uh, you know work ethic and you know the restaurants and the music and it's really a diverse city.I mean you walk through the Vany Avenue, you know you go through Korean neighborhoods,Old Jewish neighborhoods, Arabic neighborhoods, uh, Pakistani-Indian neighborhoods.It's incredible. The intensity... I think yeah, development has pushed us away from other people.You know a lot of times people are rude because they want like immediate access or immediate information.You know some things in life can't be immediate, sometimes you gotta wait and let things happen...People are like, are increasingly rude. Like I'll say somebody will get in a cab, we'll say "I'll get em there in 5 minutes."And they'll say, "Well, It should only take 3." Now who gives a shit if it takes 5 minutes or 3 minutes, who cares?At the end of your life nobody's gonna put at your tomb stone "shit I got in a cab in five, in seven minutes instead of three".You know, It doesn't matter, and technology has made us slaves to time.Naw, a lot of people that are really have technical jobs, they're slaves to time.And time is the essence of life it seems like. And they're basically like losing itThey're losing the essence of their life because, you know, their life is like just going away and,They're not enjoying it because their so engrossed in efficiency and productivity and shit like that.That it's almost sad. They all come here from somewhere else like seeking their fame and fortune or,The top jobs and they're and career-you know, in their, in their industries.They get very engrossed, and they into these you know these cell phones and computers and...I think the real important things in life are you know, people and your family.I think you don't realize that, a lot of people don't realize that until they're older.I think there's going to be a backlash against technology.

From «Street Guru», Nitin Sawhney

Summer's gone

«You try to break the mould
Before you get too old
You try to break the mould
Before you die»

Summer's gone, PLACEBO

If you really think about this...

Why do I have the idea that I'm the only reader of this blog?

And now for something completely different...

Today I tryed something different! Here it is!